September 2, 2010

Guest Post: Chelsea Campbell

Today I have with me the author of The Rise of Renegade X which I raved about here. Chelsea Campbell! Here is some background:

Chelsea Campbell grew up in the Pacific Northwest, where it rains a lot. And then rains some more. She finished her first novel when she was twelve, sent it out, and promptly got rejected. Since then she’s written many more novels, earned a degree in Latin and Ancient Greek, become an obsessive knitter and fiber artist, and started a collection of glass grapes. As a kid, Chelsea read lots of adult books, but now that she’s an adult herself (at least according to her driver’s license), she loves books for kids and teens. Besides writing, studying ancient languages, and collecting useless objects, Chelsea is a pop culture fangirl at heart and can often be found rewatching episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, leveling up in World of Warcraft, or spending way too much time on Livejournal and Facebook. (from her website)What inspired you to write YA?

--I've always written YA, even when I thought I was writing books for grown ups full of teh seriousness. They were, um, not at all full of seriousness, teh or otherwise, and despite me thinking they were aimed at adults, they were always about teenagers and had YA voice to them. So basically YA is just what comes out—even if it took me a while to realize it.

But boy do I love YA! When I was a teen, I went straight from MG to adult books and totally missed out on the teen books. But now that I'm an adult (I have a shower curtain that matches my hand towels to prove it) I can't get enough of books for teens. YA and MG are great ages to both read and write for—they incorporate a lot of genres and you can have a lot of fun with them, and the audience is great. Teen book bloggers have been super supportive of me and my book, and I've enjoyed getting to talk to and meet with them. The YA section at the store or the library is the section with the most books I'm going to actually want to read, that have fun voices and aren't trying to prove anything.

And even if I missed out on the YA section when I was a teen, I did a lot of writing back then. It's really cool now to be able to talk to aspiring teen writers and tell them it's important and that they can succeed. I guess it's a pet peeve of mine to hear someone talk about how they're “going” to write a novel someday, after college or after they backpack across Europe or whatever. And there's nothing wrong with those things, but people make excuses or think there's some stereotypical time to start writing novels. There's not, but writing does take a LOT of practice, and it's good to start building those butt in chair, fingers on keyboard discipline skills as soon as possible. Seeing the world might give you more experiences, which is good, but it's not going to magically turn you into a good writer. So my point is basically, if you want to write, do it now, even though it's scary. It will never not be scary to get started, but it will get easier with practice.

Thanks Chelsea!

So now that you have read my review, and heard from Chelsea how would you like to win a copy of The Rise of Renegade X?